(John Angell James, "Sorrow for the Death of Friends")

How dreadful is the nature of sin! Sin is the parent of death.
Death the first-born of sin. What must be the parent--when
so hideous and so dreadful is the offspring! Who can
have watched the harbingers of death--the groans, the pains,
the dying strife--without being struck with the fearful nature
of man's revolt from God?

Death in itself, and by itself--is horrid and revolting! To see
all this inflicted upon a Christian, a child of God, an heir of
glory; to see no way even to the kingdom of God, to the
realms of immortality--but this dark valley of corruption,
earth, and worms--this gives us a most impressive idea
of the dreadful nature of sin! How such scenes should
enlarge our views of the malignity of sin, and embitter
our hearts against it!

O sin, sin--what have you done!